Nordic Heritage Museum Nordic American Voices

Interview of Svan Kalve On February 18, 2012 At Seattle, Washington Interviewed by Saundra Martin and Lise Orville

Sandra Martin : [0:01] This is an interview for the Nordic American Voices oral history project. Today is February 18, 2012 and I'll be interviewing Sven Kalve, we are at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, Washington. [0:16] My name is Sandra Magnusson Martin, and my co-interviewer is Lisa Orvill. So Sven, I understand that you were born in Norway, but came to the United States very young. Do you have any memories of living in Norway?

Sven Kalve : [0:33] Yes. I do. I was a teenager when I came, so I have lots of memories. I was born in 1938, in January, so it was two and a half years, or a little less than that, before the German occupation of Norway. I don't have any memory of that occurring, but my memories start during that occupation time.

Sandra : [1:01] Do you recall stories that your parents might have told of what it was like during the occupation?

Sven : [1:09] Yes. I am aware of stories, and I have recollection of some of them during the occupation. I'm from an island on the west coast not far from Bergen. South of Bergen [inaudible 00:01:22] . We were the only family on the island and there were lots of other similarly small but populated islands in the area. Most people there were fishing. [1:36] So when the occupation occurred there were a lot of young men and some young women who would like to join the Norwegian Forces in Exile, who by then had been moved to Britain. The fishermen in that part of the country, many of them left small, fishing vessels provisioned and available for those people who wanted to leave, to take them and go to Shetland.

[2:16] Shetland was 300 miles to the west. It was part of Scotland, and it's where a lot of people from the west coast of Norway who wanted to join the forces in exile left for. I think you had interviews with some who did that.

[2:33] I had a brother who left. He was a machinist, he was a teenager, but he left as a machinist on one of those boats with several others. There were both young men who would like to leave, and there were people who had to leave because they were being sought by the occupying forces and they wanted to get away. They'd meet those people, the underground would send the messages to them. My father was part of that.

[3:09] I had cousins who left through those fishing boats. An uncle who left. An aunt who tried to leave, but she died on her way to meeting the boat in a bicycle accident. That was early in the war, of course.

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[3:31] My memories probably start about two years into the war when the occupying forces occasionally visited our island. We had a farm. They kept track of what was going on on the farms, if we've produced anything for market that they were interested in. That was part of the control process that they had. We didn't produce anything for the market. It was a farm for our...

Sandra: [4:09] Self-sustaining.

Sven : [4:10] Yes, for our use. It provided us with a good supply of food, of course, during the occupation, which some of the people in the urban areas did not...I remember late in the war, a group of soldiers came to interview my father because they had learned that he had been part of the underground. I don't know what they were seeking, but they came, but this was late in the war. [4:48] Probably they were not as enthusiastic about their work then as some of the earlier ones had been. After some period of interview, they left, and we were all intact.

Sandra : [5:01] What are your parents’ names?

Sven : [5:04] My father's name was Olaf Kalve. My mother was Sophia. She was from another island in [inaudible 00:05:15] , which was her maiden name. We had a big family. There were eight siblings. Both my parents were from large families, so when I go back I have lots of people to visit. Lots of cousins, second cousins now, and my last sibling passed away last Fall, but I did visit her for her 90th birthday in March last year. [5:55] She was still alive for the 90th. She carried on the celebration in her home. Several days of celebrating. Her husband, who is 95, is still living in her home. She exhibited here at the Nordica Museum some years ago. Leather works that she...

Sandra : [6:17] What is her name?

Sven : [6:18] Olo Kalve Stucksen.

Lisa Orvill : [6:23] Can you describe her artwork?

Sven : [6:29] She's been artistic in many things. This particular thing that she exhibited here was what in Norwegian is called [foreign words] , gilded leather. It's treated leather, especially for this process. They score designs in it, so she'll sketch a design on it, or just do it from her memory. Then they cover it with a gold leaf, gold sheet, and paint on that. [7:14] It was a medieval treatment of furniture upholstery, which is what mostly she was making. But, I've also seen it in old, big homes in Europe as wall covering to cover the stone sides. That was being revived. She was part of the activity, in Norway anyway, to revive it. She was honored by a royal medal for her work in that, which was exciting for us all.

Sandra : [7:51] Very exciting. Did she come to Seattle to visit?

Sven : [7:54] She came to Seattle to visit several times, and her husband came a few times, when my father was alive, particularly.

Sandra : [8:07] After? Excuse me, go ahead. [8:12] Since I touched on my father being here, we came here together in 1953. My father, who was a widower at that time, a brother who was a year younger than me, I was 15 years, 14, ordinarily, 14. We had left the island because of a series of tragedies. This was after the war. We had lost our mother in a long, serious illness. Then we had

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lost a brother and a younger sister in a boating accident, along with our housekeeper and one of the employees.

[8:53] My father just couldn't survive on the island anymore. He couldn't be there. I mentioned we were the only family on the island. We had a boat yard by that time. Earlier he had been a fisherman. We had a boat yard, and he was dependent on people there to work. He was dependent on people to help us keep the house up to...My brother and I wasn't as good at that.

[laughter]

[9:24] About the time he was thinking about that, one of my mother's uncles, who had immigrated to United States as a teenager early in the century, came for his first visit to Norway and visited us, and said, "If you come to Seattle, you'll have a job the next day." So, this became our destination.

We sold the island, applied for visa, and lived in Bergen for the year that we were awaiting our visa. Bergen was the largest major city to us. We left Norway in January, 1953 on [inaudible 00: [9:54] 10:23] . Landed in New York eight days later. I would remember being on the deck when we passed the Statue of Liberty.

[10:38] I don't remember any specific emotions around it, but it was fascinating to see the huge harbor that we were coming into. I remember that. We took a train to Chicago, and Great Northern Train from Chicago to Seattle. Our uncle met us here, met us at the train station. Took the bus to his home on Capitol Hill. That's where we lived. He and his wife had a boarding house, essentially. Some of his children, a daughter and a son, lived there, as did others, and we lived there for a few months.

Sandra : [11:25] By 1953, what was the procedure to immigrate? Did you have to go through something in New York when you arrived?

Sven : [11:37] No, at that time, there was a visa process firmly in place, and the immigration people boarded the ship before we docked. They were on the ship for the last few miles of the voyage, so they came on out there, out in New York Harbor, and cleared...may have taken a little longer than that, but we were cleared. Once we left the ship, we were on our own to find our destinations.

Sandra : [12:24] So did you go to school here, or did you and your brother start working also?

Sven : [12:30] We went to school here. As I had mentioned, my father did start work at Oxguard Shipyard here in Ballard the day or two after we arrived. I would have been probably the age of a ninth-grader, and my brother, eighth-grader. [12:52] They took me to Garfield High School because that was the school district we lived in, the school service area that we lived in then. They didn't think I spoke enough English, which is...I didn't. We had not learned English before coming here, to start in a high school.

[13:18] And they directed us to Edison Vocational School, which had an English, now ESL, program. Edison was walking distance from our great uncle's house down on Bellevue Avenue. So we walked there to school every day and studied English from the end of January until the end of the school year. It was a good program.

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Lisa : [13:55] How was it, coming here as a teenager?

Sandra : [14:01] Leaving your friends.

Sven : [14:02] Pardon me?

Sandra : [14:03] Leaving your friends.

Lisa : [14:04] Yeah.

Sven: [14:06] Well, there had been many uprooting things in Norway for us, leaving the island, losing much of our family. And there was a big gap in our family, so that other siblings in Norway were married and living elsewhere by then. There was a several-year gap between me and the five older than me. And then following me was a brother and a sister, who I mentioned, died in the boating accident. [14:52] It was not our choice to leave. We didn't vote on that. I think that was something that our father decided, although I don't recall that we were objecting to it, because changes were needed.

[15:16] We moved in with people who were interested in us, and were related to us, and the senior one spoke Norwegian. I think they spoke Norwegian in their home most of the time, although my great aunt was born in the United States to a Norwegian family. I think she had grown up speaking Norwegian.

[15:47] I think there were a lot of interesting things here, when we bought a house in Ballard. In the spring we moved here and started working on that. I met friends there who later were school friends. Life started coming together for us fairly soon, I think, after we got here.

Sandra : [16:12] Quite a difference coming from the small community on the island, and then coming to a bigger city, even though Seattle wasn't as big then as now.

Sven : [16:23] It was probably the biggest city I'd been in, other than travelling through...In a few hours being through New York, and a few less hours to Chicago. To us it was a big city.

Sandra : [16:39] Did you feel that after that six months of intense studying of English that you...Then they moved you into the regular school?

Sven : [16:56] Yes, they did. I started at 10th grade, a sophomore, which was the age that I would have been in. My brother started at similarly, Altoona High School, at his age. That was a valid high school, and James Monroe Junior High School. It was a challenge. School was a challenge. Math was good, but the other things, strange. Sports, and... [17:27] People helped me. A lot of my friends helped me. The teachers were patient. I had very good teachers. They showed a lot of patience for the challenges.

[17:45] There was one teacher at Ballard that who had spent time in Norway, studying I think, and he may have been there teaching some also. I didn't have classes from him, but I did take Norwegian tests for him. Get some credits for that. I studied Spanish. That was easier than some things.

Lisa : [18:15] Was the Norwegian independent study? Was that how you got credit for it?

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Sven : [18:21] It was primarily through proficiency test. I did study at the University of Washington later. I did study Norwegian literature, so I stayed in touch some with it.

Sandra : [18:37] They did for a long time teach Norwegian at Ballard High School. I don't think they do that anymore.

Sven : [18:43] He taught Norwegian there, but he didn't think I would benefit very much from that class.

Sandra : [18:55] What did you study at the University of Washington? What was your degree in?

Sven : [19:01] Initially I was there for about a year and then went off and worked various places. Eventually when I went back and finished I obtained a degree in economics. I was interested in political science, I took a number of classes in that. Economics of urban areas was of interest to me. [19:26] I had a teacher at Ballard, who spurred my interest in politics, so I have been active in the political process since then. I started working on a campaign when I was a senior in high school. I think it was election year and I worked for a couple of candidates very actively then that year.

Lisa : [19:59] Can you describe more of what you did, and who they were?

Sven : [20:05] One was a candidate in a primary for Governor. He lost the primary. He was a state senator I believe from Eastern Washington. I liked him, I admired him. He died not long thereafter in an automobile accident, probably going from political meeting to political meeting in eastern Washington. [20:47] The other one I worked for that year was a candidate for judge. I don't recall specifically, I think that was probably calling people, I would guess.

Sandra : [21:16] What do you think the differences are between the political system, and how things were done in Norway?

Sven : [21:25] I wasn't acquainted with the political system when I had left Norway, but my two sisters and my brother, who lived in Norway all of their lives. I have another brother, who later came to United States and lives in the Bay area with his family. He sailed, so he wasn't actively engaged in politics, but the other three were. I know what they were involved in, including my sister Ola, who I mentioned earlier. [22:14] I don't know how much of the population actively participate, but they all seem to be informed and vote, and so on. When I am there, if it's election time, they're all engaged some way, or another.

[22:33] My sisters, and maybe my brother, served on lists that the party they support assemble. When they are able to fill a seat, they get enough votes to fill a seat, they just start at the top of the list and they go down. That includes all sorts of positions like local boards, and local school boards, local councils, city councils, et cetera. Both my sisters have served in official capacities because they were on their party list, and there was a position that they held as a result of that.

[23:24] I think it's a participatory process. It is a good democratic process. It's different from ours, I wouldn't alter ours to be like that, nor would I encourage them to alter theirs. Because I think they are both participatory democracies. We have some different foundation of how we work. It does depend on people's engagement. That's what works best.

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Lisa : [24:04] I'm amazed that your family was the only family on this island. Yet, they expanded to become politically active. What was your life like on this island?

Sven : [paper shuffling] [24:27] Sorry I'm making noises with that.

Sandra : [24:35] Did you take a boat off the island to go to school?

Sven : [24:39] Yes, and too go shopping, and too go fishing. We had to go by boat to anywhere. Going to school, I'll touch a little on some specifics of it, if that's OK? I don't know if I can generally... [laughs] [25:03] We started school at age seven. That was after the war was over, that I started school. The war was over in the spring of '05, and I started school at the end of the summer in '05. It was a one room school house that served the islands in the area. One teacher and he had seven years of students. He divided them in three years, four years, and one group went Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. One went Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Then we had homework to do in-between.

[25:51] Our family, education was important to them. All of my siblings continued school after those seven years, which was the basic education in the rural areas. I think in the urban areas there was perhaps one, or two more years.

[26:19] All of my siblings continued school. My mother had attended more education. My father had not, but he was proficient never the less. That was of value to them. Both my mother and father had been active in making sure they had a quality teacher in this island school, when they needed to act on that.

[27:01] The teacher lived in the small town of Fitjar, near our island. We were about three kilometers from Fitjar. He'd get in his boat and head towards school and we were on the way and he picked us up, he picked up about three other students along the way. The others came by boat from other islands. The island where the school was, there were several families who walked to the schoolhouse.

Sandra : [27:35] How is it that your father came to live on this island? Was his family there?

Sven : [27:40] His father bought the island. The [inaudible 00:27:44] is from a group of islands a little farther north, closer to Bergen. Now there are bridges to it, that you can get to from Bergen. [27:59] My grandfather was from a big family also and probably needed to expand from there, so he bought this island, I think in 1908, and moved there. Refurbished some of the houses. There were two houses. One big enough to accommodate his big family and our later family, and a smaller one that later we had some people who stayed on the island. Some of them lived in that house, or a portion of the smaller house. My grandmother lived there for a long time.

He moved his family there. He was a fisherman, my father became a fisherman very young. My grandfather died in 1918, I think I have that year right. My father was not quite 20 when his father died in the Spanish, [inaudible 00: [28:42] 29:12] , the Spanish influenza. I'm not sure if there's anything Spanish about it, but it was referred to as the Spanish influenza.

[29:20] As did his best friend and neighbor who had a fishing operation as well on a neighboring island. They also had a store, and post office, and a dock that coastal vessels stopped in and so on.

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That was a pretty devastating blow to the community and certainly too those two families, our family, and the [inaudible 00: [29:40] 29:47] family on the next island.

Sandra : [29:51] No one else in the family got sick?

Sven : [29:54] No.

Sandra : [29:55] Interesting. How did your father and your mother meet?

Sven : [30:03] I think that my father and his father, my grandfather, had engines mounted in fishing vessels at [inaudible 00:30:18] . They built boats and they did the mechanical work for boaters, and when engines came along they probably did work on the engines too early on. [30:31] I think my father met her there when they had a boat in dock there to be worked on. She ran a store that they had there, provisioning for boats. I don't know exactly when they met, but I am assuming she was about 18, he was about 20 when they met, and he was doing that. I think she was 20 and he was 22 when they married.

Sandra : [31:13] Did you have a lot of freedom growing up on the island, or were you mostly working on the farm? Did you get to take a boat out, you and your younger brother?

Sven : [31:26] It seems to me that most of our time as youth, my brother who is close to my age and our sister who sort of tagged along with us, most of our time was free to do what we wanted. Certainly there were things we had to do, but those were family projects. [31:56] When farm work needed to be done there were others, the adults were working on it too. Later I helped in the boat yard that we had on our island, we built small boats. I was not any skilled work I did, I helped, did what I was told, learned to do wood working and other things.

[32:25] We were free to use the boats to go fishing, these were row boats, and often we were sent up to go fishing because we were going to have dinner in a while and fish was needed. We were quite young. We had boats that we played with, smaller like a foot long or some bigger, that we would sail around our island and that would be more than a day trip. So we'd stop and pull into shore and go back for meals and go out and continue again. So we had a lot of freedom.

Lisa : [33:19] What kind of fishing did your dad do? Did you go out...?

Sven : [33:23] Herring fishing was what he fished when he was fishing. He didn't fish after the German occupation for...and I'm not clear I know all the reasons for that. It might have been in part because my oldest brother was named on the vessel that they had. I think that they disposed of that vessel because he had left for England and probably there would be problems with it. [34:05] So he built boats then and we packed herring, salted herring, and big barrels of it during the war. I had a brother who was 10 years older than me but who was at home then. He was still a teenager. He did a lot of organizing or that.

[34:39] One of the jobs I did was go up on the highest hill on our island and run up a flag up on the post. That was a symbol to the other islands that we had work now for a few days, because we had a load of herring that had come in to be cleaned and salted and put in barrels.

Lisa : [35:05] Was the herring fishing part of the year? It wasn't all year?

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Sven : [35:10] It wasn't all year. The North Sea fishing was in the winter. Early in the year and out till the end of the winter probably. Then there was a summer fisheries that are the smaller herring that they fished and that is in closer to shore. Well they're all close to shore but they're only ones that would come into the bays and around our island too.

Sandra : [35:51] Your brother that went to England to be in the army in exile, did he tell you stories of what they were doing after it was all over? Do you have any recollection?

Sven : [36:07] I recall when he came back and that was exciting. I probably did not remember anything about him because I was a little less than three when he left. It was exciting. I don't remember many stories.

Sandra : [36:33] Well you were still young.

Sven : [36:39] And he stayed in the military so he was a career military person. He was part of the invasion of Europe. I'm not sure what he took part in. I don't believe they were part of the initial landing. He was a radio officer I think, and I'm inclined to think that he would be in the command structure, sending out radio messages and things like that. When he was back in Norway he served in the far north for a while in bases there which probably were later also oriented toward watching our Russian neighbor probably. He then finished his career in the [inaudible 00: [37:06] 37:48] area. That's where he settled and that's where he had his family and where his descendants still live.

Sandra : [37:59] Were you allowed to have a radio on the island?

Sven : [38:03] No. We're not allowed to have a radio. We did have a radio as many of the homes near us did because there are lots of places to hide them, but that was not permitted.

Sandra : [38:18] So your parents were able to get news of the war?

Sven : [38:22] Yes, but I'm not sure how much. They did get British broadcasts but they were infrequent and they would have to be available at the time that those were on to hear them, which probably was not a consistent thing.

Lisa : [38:41] What about your life after you graduated from the University of Washington? What did you go on to do?

Sven : [38:50] Well, as I mentioned earlier I didn't graduate initially. I left and did some work. This school was challenging still for me, particularly with the language. I enjoyed it and I had lots of friends who went there and I was a little uncertain in what I wanted to do. So I worked in the lumber mill. I worked at Shingle Seattle Cedar Lumber Mill that burned down here.

Sandra : [39:31] Here? Yeah.

Sven : [39:32] It was in Ballard. I worked on cutting the lumber there. Then I worked in...I guess I did that in my last summer in high school and maybe the summer after. Then I worked in the Olympic Stain products where I worked on shingle production and staining and so on. [40:05] We became citizens in 1958 and after obtaining my citizenship I applied for work at Boeing and went to work there and spent the next 40 plus years working there. Also, about that time I met my wife

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who was a student at Seattle University, Marta Svereiger, at that time. We became engaged in 1960.

[40:51] I left for the Marine Corp on a leave from Boeing and was in training for that and we married in 1961. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary last September. Thank you. Yes. Yes, it has been wonderful. That has been a big boon to my time in the United States.

Lisa : [41:29] She wasn't Norwegian though was she?

Sven : [41:33] No, but she's honorary Norwegian now. Her closest ancestral ties are Swiss. Her father, both of her maternal grandparents had come from Switzerland. Her mothers ancestors are mostly German, but we did discover fairly recently going through some documents that some of her maternal ancestors are Danish. She had some Scandinavian, small percentage.

Sandra : [42:11] When you lived with your uncle and his family when you first came, you and your father and brother, it must have been comfortable for you to have the foods that you were used to that's the way they have them in Norway. Did they have those customs? Did they bring those with them and practice them as far as food and holidays?

Sven : [42:40] I think most of the food was new to us now. Because my great uncle had been here for 50 years or more then and his wife, her parents came from Norway. She lived on a farm in the east when she met my great uncle. [43:09] The food that we had was not usual to our practice. Although they certainly...She made Norwegian cookies and...but the food was good and it was nice to be in a home like that. We had our meal with them. We had a separate area that we lived in and it was good.

[43:45] There were children around and the family of the youngest one was in his 20s. I think he is still living, Harry Ness, my great uncle was Joseph Ness which is abbreviated from Kroness and two of his descendants, Joseph Ness's descendants are still living and then there are several next generation living. That was a good family for us to know and appreciate and I see them now, not frequently, but several times a year I see someone or more of them. I think it was Harry Ness who actually sponsored our Visa when we came here because he was working; my great uncle was retired by then.

Lisa : [44:45] So you've gone back to Norway many times?

Sven : [44:49] We went back the first time in 1971, so that was 16 years or so, since I left there. We had visits before that from my sisters and my brother in Norway may have visited also but I don't remember just when that time was. It was nice to go back. Marta went with me when we went back. [45:27] We visited all my family that was living at the time. All my uncles were living still, nearly all of them my uncles and cousins, the generation that were closer to my age. It was nice to see them. Norway was still struggling with the economic recovery at that time. When we visited again probably five or six years later it was a huge difference because the economic conditions were so much better then.

Lisa : [46:12] Was that the oil?

Sven : [46:15] In part.

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Lisa : [46:16] Yeah, but not totally?

Sven : [46:19] No, I think there was an economic growth in many areas, but the oil certainly assisted with it and has continued to, of course. After I mentioned Marta and I were married in '61, I was still working for Boeing then. I was back at Boeing after my Marine Corp stay. [46:54] They asked me to go to Huntsville, Alabama and later to New Orleans to work on the Apollo program, which we did. Marta joined me there shortly after. We had our first daughter Kari in New Orleans in 1962, and our second daughter Corinne was born in New Orleans in '64.

[47:29] Then we returned to Seattle in '66. It was also in the troves of the hard economic times for Boeing here and I think for Seattle. But I had a position to come back to and I did and worked on getting us through the economic turmoil, which we did. We recovered from that.

Sandra : [48:10] What did you do on the Apollo program? Or is it secret?

Sven : [48:17] No it isn't secret. We built the Saturn, the initial Saturn rocket that lifted everything off the ground. Apollo was the title for all of the work more than just the work that we did. I worked on the Saturn program of that and I worked mostly with administrative processes there. I did some work with factory systems that would track the activities in the factory, make sure parts are at the right place and so on. That was part of the administrative tasks.

Sandra : [49:07] It must have been very exciting though, because this is the beginning of the space program.

Sven : [49:10] It was exciting to be there, yes. It was great to see it come together. We had to build the buildings that was done in and I was there during the...I was part of the first two dozen people in New Orleans anyway. There were more in Huntsville when I got there because engineering was being done there at the time. It was exciting.

Lisa : [49:41] Was that the first moon shot?

Sven : [49:43] Yes it was. That was a moon landing.

Sandra : [49:50] Did you and Marta have more children besides your daughters?

Sven : [49:54] After we returned we had our third daughter, Gwen. For some untold reasons the nearest one lives 1,200 miles from us. Gwen lives in San Diego, Kari our oldest lives in Richmond, Indiana where she is a professor at Borland College, and Corrine lives in Connecticut. She just finished her first year in Connecticut but she'll move again.

Sandra : [50:29] Are they interested in their Norwegian heritage?

Sven : [50:31] Oh yes they are. They've all been to Norway. They've been there with me and they've been there on their own. We make more trips to Norway now as we got older and we have lots of family who comes here. [50:57] She's had one of her cousins in New York shortly after she moved to Connecticut. She's just a short train ride from New York City. They're aware of their heritage and they know a lot of their relatives in Norway, they've met many of them.

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Lisa : [51:24] You didn't speak Norwegian with them when they were growing up because it's hard when both...?

Sven : [51:31] No I didn't. Marta has studied Norwegian here in the language program. For several years she studied here. No, I'm sorry. It wasn't here but it was in Ballard. Kari, our oldest, reads Norwegian quite well and it doesn't take her long when she's in Norway to speak it and understand it as well. [52:06] I think she took classes at the university and the Scandinavian program also. Gwen has been there as well. Gwen has spent some time with my sister who Ola, so she learned some of that craft as well.

Sandra : [52:33] Gordon told us that you worked for Boeing as maybe a little bit of a liaison to Olympia? Or is this...

Sven : [52:55] Aside from my regular jobs, Boeing sent people on special task forces at times. The company was asked, "Would you help with this, would you help study this for us?" An economic condition perhaps, or something. They'd find people who might do that, and we did it for...Sometimes it was part time. Sometimes it was a special task for a while. It was of a limited duration each time. I did a lot of those. [53:40] I did some for the Seattle School District, for example. The levies failed one year, and the school district wanted help with studying their budget to make sure they had a good case to make at the next levy. We helped them with that.

[54:05] Boeing was one person who did it. I was one from Boeing. There were several other companies who participated in that, as well. I worked on that kind of task forces. Not specifically to Olympia, although I did do some similar things for the state, also, that I did in Olympia. Again, I was dealing with economic conditions.

Sandra : [54:33] That tied right into your political interests then?

Sven : [54:35] Yes, it did.

Sandra : [54:37] Wonderful opportunity.

Sven : [54:39] I've also worked on similar committees with King County, and with our cities, independent of what I did with Boeing. That's an evening thing. I was co-chair of a committee that tested the first electronic balloting process for King County. And, it worked, but it was the very initial, and has gone a long way since, and that's long after my time there.

Lisa : [55:21] You continue doing this?

Sven : [55:23] Yes I do.

Lisa : [55:25] What are you working on now?

Sven : [55:28] Well, I'm working on seeking public money for the museum's new building, because we think that certain amount of that money could come from public sources. Most other museums receive the benefit of that. And we receive some commitments and some money, so I'm still working on that. And that takes me to Olympia. [55:59] So, this time of year when the legislature is in session, I attend a heritage caucus on Wednesday morning in Olympia. But others from heritage organizations, arts and heritage organizations come too. And we talk and share the

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information about what we're doing and we talk about the legislation that is before the state that we have an interest in. So every Wednesday morning I do that.

[56:34] I spent some time during the day to visit with representatives and senators that have an interest in our activities, know us, represent our district, for example. I've also done some of that kind of work on the federal level. I'd go to Washington and meet when Task Forces with people from other companies who were alone to do that as well. It was something I enjoyed and I like the political process, so it was fun.

Lisa : [57:13] Any progress?

Sven : [57:21] What I have worked on, I have seen progress and yes. I don't know what you mean by any progress, but I went in one administration in the 80's, I worked on electronic funds transfer processes, for example, and on the federal, for the Treasury with people from Alcoa, Penneys, and other companies. I don't remember them all. [57:57] They implemented a lot of things that we...we didn't develop it, we just were making general suggestions and then they worked on it. So yes, I've seen progress. I am very optimistic about our political processes.

Lisa : [58:21] Good.

Sandra : [58:24] It's wonderful, all these interests that you have that have come together and been able to work on these Task Forces.

Sven : [58:33] Yes. I've enjoyed that. I've enjoyed that.

Sandra : [58:42] Yes. Do you have any more questions, Lisa about...?

Lisa : [58:46] You covered so many things so beautifully.

Sandra : [58:50] You did.

Sven : [58:52] I think I mentioned that Marta and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary, and we were happy to spend a week with our family. We have a small family. They were all with us in Spain for a week at a Norwegian community where my family happens to have some places...

Sandra : [59:18] Is there a missing community? Tell us about that.

Sven : [59:22] There are a lot of Nordic people that go to Spain in the winter. My sister-in-law, who is passed away, it was her husband who was in the military, was a nurse and she worked in a Nordic clinic in [inaudible 00:59:49] on the southeast coast of Spain. She worked there many years. She bought a condo there, and she had three children, and they bought another condo. So they have two condos there. [60:06] There are lots of other Norwegian communities, Norwegians there, so I have lots of cousins who live there, and cousins' children who live there. Not necessarily in that same complex, but in short distance. There are restaurants that are operated by Norwegians, who my family recommends, and so on. We had a good time. Marta and I visited a cousin, and several cousins, once removed, who lived there, either full time or part time.

Sandra : [60:42] That's wonderful.

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Lisa : [60:44] You're lucky to have such a far-flung family.

Sven : [60:49] It's fun, yeah, it's fun.

Sandra : [60:52] Gordon wanted us to ask you before we end our interview if you had any comments to make about Olaf [inaudible 01:01:00] , because they're going to do some kind of a video presentation in honor of him. He wondered if you had anything you might like to say.

Sven : [61:16] He mentioned that to me also, so I've been thinking about it, and I do. Maybe you could turn this off for a little while, and I could have a drink of water, and [inaudible 01:01:29] .

Sandra : [61:33] It's that one, yes, that one.

Lisa : [61:35] Is that a train?

Sandra : [61:38] That sounded like a train. [laughter]

Sven : [61:40] That's my train.

Sandra : [61:42] We stopped it just in time. That was really lovely, you sat down, really lovely.

Sven : [61:48] Thank you. I had some pauses that I didn't intend to..

Sandra : [61:52] I don't know, they may condense it. I don't know. It's on my phone.

Sven : [61:58] They have it now though forever they can...

Sandra : [62:01] Yes, they do. It'll really be special to him, I'm sure, when you talk about the Frye and people missing him. Well, this has been very fun for us. For Lisa and I to hear your story.

Lisa : [62:15] Wonderful.

Sven : [62:17] Thank you.

Sandra : [62:17] Thank you for sharing it with us. Gordon asked us to give you this packet of small gifts from the museum.

Sven : [62:27] Thank you very much. I really appreciate you, your questions and your guidance that you provided along the way. It was good.

Lisa : [62:41] It was easy thing to do you just talked. You were so heartfelt.

Sven : [62:47] I'm not ready to stop. [laughter]

Sandra : [62:55] Well, we do feel sometimes like we need to have a second interview because people have so many interesting stories. It's wonderful.

Lisa : [63:04] I hope the traffic will improve on your way back.

Sven : [63:07] I think it will. I think it was an anomaly that I encountered. I have two ways to pick to come. One is the Iberian Freeway on the Viaduct, that's my preferred way but via duct is

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sometimes challenging now. I've altered it a little. [63:27] I come in I-5 and I get off near the stadium south of the city but that means I have to go from Spokane Street to the stadium on the freeway. If it stopped going through town, that stops too. That's what happened to me. Then I have to get off and find alternative to Viaduct.

Sandra : [63:52] My husband commutes, or used to, when we worked down in Soto, commuted on the viaduct. It's such a spectacular view. It's torn down. I never thought politically correct.

Lisa : [64:09] There are some parks there. [crosstalk]

Sandra : [64:13] You won't be tall enough to see all the buildings to see the wonderful view. Sometimes when we pick people up at the airport, we bring them intentionally back to our house on the Viaduct so that they can see how beautiful it is here.

Sven : [64:29] Yeah, it is. When I used to worked at Boeing, I can't remember when I started using the Vaiduct, I lived in Ballard for a while and, but it went as far as the exit to first avenue. The extension beyond that was not built yet. But that space that you're talking about on the central waterfront was there and it's always exciting to see.

Sandra : [65:00] It's spectacular.

Lisa : [65:02] Do you have any Norwegians where you live now?

Sven : [65:06] Yes I do. There are Norwegians everywhere. [laughing] Some of them have joined the CMO.

Sandra : [65:16] Oh that's wonderful!

Sven : [inaudible 01:05:18] used to be [inaudible 01:05:19] , Serbie and his wife who is Swedish, but was born here. I think they both lived in [inaudible 01:05:35] [65:18] and went to Lincoln high school. He came here quite young. He's from the Eastern side of Norway. I have others who are of Norwegian descent. Have you ever interviewed Andy Ferry sometime?

Sandra : [66:05] Someone probably has, you know there are a lot of people who do this [inaudible 01:06:09] , Gordan, yeah.

Sven : [66:13] Andy's daughter lived in Ballard. He died last year but he lived near us, not far from us.

Lisa : [66:24] They interviewed him just months before...he...so it's was on the city. [crosstalk]

Sandra : [66:27] Oh, that is so nice we were able to get that.

Lisa : [66:32] Do you have that?

Sven : [66:33] I don't have that.

Sandra : [66:35] You don't have that? Well you have to get one.

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Lisa : [66:37] Gordon has some in his car, well walk down with you and get one from Gordon, because you do need it.

Sandra : [66:44] Yeah.

Sven : [66:46] Well his wife Selma, who died a few years ago, lived before he came to the United States. He was the one who went to Shetland and said that his older brother had not as, [laughing] as good of journey over him. Some friends rented an open boat and spent two weeks in a storm. [laughing] But they got there. [67:14] And he came to the United States after the war and Andy came a little later. But Andy lived where my sister Ola lives on an island of Bungo, which is a more populated island, maybe 3,000 people on it. And there is a machine, a diesel engine manufacturer and shipyard for installing motors and Andy worked there and he worked with my brother-in-law there, Selma and his wife, who is a little older than my sister. When she got there and had new children, Selma told her, "You've got to get out of the house. You need to get out and do something."

[laughter]

That was her life-saving advice. She was active in the community and the [inaudible 01: [68:03] 08:13] ever since. She credited Selma very, very...

Sandra : [68:17] That's wonderful.

Lisa : [68:18] I wish we had a Norwegian map because I would love to have you point out the islands.

Sven : [68:24] Well I will, if you're coming down, I'll show you.

Lisa : [68:26] Yeah, because I'm not sure we have the correct spelling.

Sven : [68:32] Do you want me to give you spellings?

Lisa : [68:34] Yeah, actually, that would be great.

Sven : [68:43] I've referred to the town. I don't know if I used the name of the island right.

Sandra : [68:52] If you could give us the name of the island, and then also the name of the town. It sounded like it started with an h.

Sven : [68:59] I lived on [inaudible 01:09:01] . I think there's a d.

Lisa : [69:11] That's a foundry.

Sven : [69:13] Smith is a...

Lisa : [69:16] Locksmith?

Sven : [69:18] ...is a smith, smitty. It has other names when you go through the history. [inaudible 01:09:25] , which might refer to sheep, but there might be other things. But, I think there was a

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smith who had a smitty there at one time. So, it's Smith Island. And the nearby town, it's the township actually, township seat. Can you read my writing?

Lisa : [69:58] Yes.

Sven : [70:00] I don't know if the town...that's my determination, my English word for it. It is governed. It has a council, and a mayor, and so on. It's Fitzoehus.

Lisa : [70:29] That's an interesting name.

Sven : [70:30] I don't think that shows on the map.

Sandra : [laughs] [70:32]

Sven : [70:38] One of the interesting things, when I lived there, it was about an 8-hour trip to get to Bergen. We took a steamer that stopped several places, small docks along the way. Of course now, from Fitzoehus is probably a two or three hour trip with driving and ferry. That has done amazing things to the language, and to the mobility of people. It has done an amazing thing to keeping people in places like Fitzoehus. They don't [inaudible 01:11:22] .

Lisa : [71:23] Good

Sven : [71:24] It's also that, and television, and radio communications, and telephones, and electricity everywhere has changed the dialects. When I go there now, nobody has the dialect that I have.

Lisa : [71:49] Oh, really? It's changed that much? I'll be darned.

Sven : [71:51] They'll sit there and listen to me, and tell me I need to go to the museum. [laughter]

Lisa : [71:59] I still use old fashioned numbers, you know like [inaudible 01:12:04] , but now they don't do that [inaudible 01:12:08] . They tell me too that I'm a museum piece.

Sven : [72:16] What I mean by that I've met people who are linguists who do record that.

Sandra : [72:25] They have an interest in preserving that.

Sven : [72:32] I had a letter from a woman who is one generation younger than me, her father was my cousin. She's in her late 40s and her writing...I think it's the dialect writing and I think it's fascinating. She has lived for many years in a different part of the country from where I live so the dialects would be different in the mountain areas. Where are you from?

Lisa : [73:11] My family's from Larvik on the east coast, south of Vostello.

Sven : [73:20] How do you spell that?

Lisa : [73:22] L-A-R-V-I-K.

Sven : [73:26] We have it Lervik, with an E-R. The island where Fitchar is. Fitchar's on the north island, so the next township south is the [inaudible 01:13:42] is Lervik.

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Lisa : [73:43] Oh, I didn't know that.

Sven : [73:47] That's a small town. They have a hospital. I'll show you on the map.

Lisa : [73:59] Yeah. [crosstalk]

Sandra : [74:01] We'll come back up and get all this stuff.

Lisa : [inaudible 01:14:02] [74:02] talk to Gordie because you have to get that TV.

Sven : [74:09] Thank you very much. They locked us in. [laughter]

Sandra : [74:14] That's one of my assignments is to re-open this gate. We wanted to close it for the noise in case there were visitors to the museum. [crosstalk]

Lisa : [74:27] Does it work by itself? [laughs] Nice going. [loud noise]

Sandra : [74:40] And then we don't forget it.

Lisa : [74:44] We'll come back and [inaudible 01:14:45] .

Sandra : [74:45] Oh yeah, we'll have to come back and get the camera. [background noise only]

[74:50]

Transcription by CastingWords

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